


Pink Frosting and Other Potentially Fatal Ventures

by persnickett



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-27
Updated: 2011-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-16 00:02:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/166261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persnickett/pseuds/persnickett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A cinderblock and rubble Valentine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pink Frosting and Other Potentially Fatal Ventures

A few weeks after New Years, and the world around him is abruptly, but predictably, turning pink.  
   
By the first of the month he can’t even stop for a damn coffee without fending off a full visual assault of garishly frosted cupcakes and heart shaped cookies. Even the bar napkins at the unit’s favorite after-work watering hole have mysteriously changed to red. It’s been years since John had to pay it any attention, so he can probably be excused for forgetting the implications, here.  
   
It’s not until he’s sprawled and bleeding on the pavement, with a pair of very familiar, very _wide_ brown eyes staring shockily up at him, that he remembers.  
   
“You get used to it,” John grunts, in response to the big-eyed stare. The effort sends warning pains down his ribcage. Fuck. Another cracked rib, he’d put money on it.  
   
And John’s not sure that’s entirely true. No matter how many times they end up here, he can’t seem to get used to the sight and the feel of one Matthew Farrell laid flat and panting under him.  
   
“McClane?” A couple more velvet-red petals come fluttering down around Matt’s face, but he doesn’t seem to be taking in anything but John. It’s understandable. Farrell’s still new to this, he doesn’t know the score yet.  
   
“What are you doing here?” Matt asks him, dazedly, from his bed of concrete and roses.  
   
“Could ask the same of you, kid. Last minute shopping for your girlfriend?”  
   
Matt is looking at him funny. Could be concussed.  
   
“You alright? Can you move?”  
   
“I...yeah. I think.”  
   
It’s a second or so before John realizes at least part of the reason Matt can’t move is _him_.  It’s awkward getting to his feet, and he hears himself curse a couple times before he makes it. He offers the kid a hand up and Matt stumbles up and forward, overbalancing and then folding up against John’s chest for support.  
   
Fuck yeah, that rib is definitely cracked.  
   
“You weren’t supposed to find out for a couple more hours,” Matt says, steadying himself with a hand on each of John’s shoulders, and then looking around at the scene of devastation surrounding them. “But somehow I don’t think this place is going to be making any of its deliveries today, so.”  
   
Matt’s hands drop casually to John's chest, and he brushes some of the dust and rubble from John’s coat. Matt meets John’s gaze with dark-pupiled eyes and gives him a soft, endorphin-spiked smile that makes the adrenaline singing through John’s veins give a little answering trill.  
   
“Honestly, who blows up a fucking florist’s?” the kid says, looking around them again and breaking off the eye contact. It feels just a little too deliberate. “I was here to assuage my guilt. Atonement for my sins, that kind of shit.”  
   
“Atonement?” John repeats, as Matt lets his hands fall away and takes a shaky step backward. The kid has officially stopped making any kind of sense. Maybe he should get checked for concussion himself.  
   
“Yeah. See, there’s this guy who saved my life about infinity plus one times last summer. And I…didn’t so much _forget_ to send him a Christmas gift this year, as more or less just completely and totally chicken out. So I was on my way to Forbidden Planet, and this place had these big signs about sales on gift baskets...”  
   
Matt lets the sardonic explanation trail off with a sheepish shrug of his shoulders, followed by a delayed, “ow.”  
   
Matt rubs at his right arm, and looks at John from under his bangs. Waiting.  
   
Time for John to fess up. It might prove to be key to Matt’s survival one of these days.  
   
“I should have warned ya, kid,” he says, reaching up to rub a smudge of soot off of Matt’s cheek bone. “You made the right choice back at Christmas. Associating with a McClane on a major holiday is just flirting with disaster.”  
   
“Holiday? It’s not even the weekend.”  
   
That’s it. John is definitely getting the EMTs to check Matt for cerebral edema when they finish processing all the hostages.  
   
There are still petals drifting down out of the air, and what’s left of a pink and white rose sticking haphazardly up out of the side of Matt’s hair. He looks slightly bewildered, but doesn’t flinch away, as John reaches up and combs his fingers as gently as he can through Matt’s ash-tangled mop to come away with the clinging bloom.   
   
“Happy Valentine’s day, kid,” John says, holding out his burnt offering and giving his teasing smirk approximately one-third power.  
   
It’s an explanation, and maybe a bit of something else too, but all John wants or expects out of it is another one of those slow, sweet post-adrenaline smiles. What he gets is Matt staring past the half-charred rose and right into John’s eyes like he’s seeing him for the first time.  
   
And then he’s knocking John’s hand aside as he throws himself forward and flings his arms around John’s neck, bumping their mouths together just this side of too fuckin’ hard.  
   
The kiss is desperate, wild and unyielding, and definitely a surprise. John is completely bowled over, so dumbfounded by the bold move that he doesn’t notice until Matt freezes in his arms that he’s rigid – immobile with the shock. He hasn’t responded.  
   
That can be remedied. John brings both hands up to catch Matt’s face before he can pull back completely. He fits their mouths together again and moves his lips over Matt’s with a slow but purposeful motion, saying everything they can't seem to put into words.  
   
Matt makes a small but happy sound in his throat, and the choking dust and smoke, the tumbling petals, the peal of the sirens and the shouts of the investigation team sealing off the scene all fade and recede until there is only this. Only the warm, rough edge of Matt’s jaw at his fingertips, the throbbing pulse in his throat under John’s thumb.  
   
“Valentine’s day,” Matt murmurs, when the kiss ends, lips still pressed warmly to the corner of John’s mouth. "That explains the sale on gift baskets.”

It begins as just a quiet chuckle – John isn’t sure who starts first – then their laughter bubbles up and rises to a pitch that probably does more than border on hysterical. He’s not sure how long it lasts, but it’s been ages and it feels damn good.

“Flirting with disaster,” Matt snorts, when he can breathe again. “I was _trying_ to flirt with _you_. Although I’m beginning to get a little foggy on the distinction there. I mean it, _who blows up a florist’s?_  Seriously, McClane, I can’t take you anywhere.”  
   
“I’m startin’ to think you don’t need my help any more, kid. What the hell were you thinkin’ trying to wrestle that whack-job for his gun?”  
   
“He was pointing it at that little girl! Do you see an earpiece in my ear McClane? Do you think I knew what was going on outside? All I knew was whatever that dude in the suit with the megaphone was yelling. I didn’t know that nutbar had the place rigged with explosives! Besides, what about you? You came smashing in through the fucking window!”   
    
“Bought you enough time to get everybody out of there, didn’t I?”  
   
“You know,” Matt says thoughtfully, “I think you might be concussed.”  
   
“You better stick around then,” John replies, wondrously managing to keep his face straight as he reaches both hands out for Matt’s hips and brings him closer again. The kid has drifted back on his heels while they laughed and it suddenly seems too far away. “Somebody’ll need to get me up every two hours and test my reflexes.”  
   
“Every two hours?” Matt’s tone is mocking but he moves willingly enough. “I know it’s been a while since you were my age, but I think you might be seriously overestimating my stamina. Not that I’m not up for a challenge.”  
   
John feels his lips quirk in a predatory half-smile as he leans in to promise the kid one. 

There’s a warning squawk of a megaphone and then an amplified and bored-sounding voice intones from across the street, “get a room, McClane.”  
   
“A _hospital_ room, you stubborn asshole!” a higher-pitched, feminine shout chimes in, without the aid or the need of the megaphone.  
   
“Oh God,” Matt moans, chagrined. “Oh God, God, and oh, fucking _shit_. Sorry McClane. Not the best moment to make my intentions known, huh?”  
   
Maybe the kid’s right and the whole nobody-in-the-world-but-us thing should keep for a while. Then again, he’s damn near irresistible when he blushes.  
   
“Joe Lambert and Connie Kowalski,” John says by way of introduction, flashing a grin and a good long view of his middle finger across the intersection. “And like I said, you’ll get used to it.”  
   
John’s still not sure it’s true. He can’t be sure, as he takes one last look into the deep brown eyes before he lets all that bright, warm energy out of his grasp so they can debrief the investigators, that he will ever get used to any of it, or the things it all seems to do to his chest.

But he figures he’s got a good month until St. Paddy’s day to give it a try.

 

 

________________________

Snick, February 14, 2011


End file.
